Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Most Serene Republic share the distinction of being the first non-Broken Social Scene related band to sign to Arts And Crafts. As such, they always managed to hold our interest as a band that deserved a little special bit of extra recognition. After all, it must take a fair amount of awesomeness to win over the collective approval of the BSS camp, no?

Given that, we were psyched to hear that the band has a new record on the way this summer. Entitled ...And The Ever Expanding Universe, the record actually brings in BSS producer Dave Newfeld. Newfeld has been cited by Kevin Drew as a decided force on BSS' sound, so it'll be interesting to see just how much that affects The Most Serene Republic.

The full album's still hidden away, but the label has released a taste with a single track, "Heavens To Purgatory". After a few listens, we have to say we're digging it quite a bit. Newfeld has clearly managed to exert some influence, but at the same time the band is definitely holding on to their own sound. Check it for yourself below.